


Temptation

by spiced_1990



Category: Spice Girls
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29665185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiced_1990/pseuds/spiced_1990
Summary: Temptation isn't just about sex. She knows that now.
Relationships: Melanie Brown/Geri Halliwell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Temptation

**She’s tempted by her body. (It’s physical, of course it is.)**

She likes reading about love at first sight. Even if it hasn’t happened for her yet, she wants to keep an open mind for the future. Just in case. It’s a special kind of chemistry they say, a meeting of souls, a recognition of your  _ person _ . Sometimes when she’s with Mel (especially talking in the pre-dawn hours, faces so close on their pillows that she can feel her friend’s breath on her face), she wonders if it feels similar to that. As complicated and frustrating as their relationship has been, there’s also never been anyone who gets her as well as Mel does, nobody who lights up her nerve endings with just a wide smile or a small touch.

In an ideal world, attraction would be rooted in character and compatibility. And it is. To an extent. But first impressions are first impressions, and the first thing she’d noticed about Melanie was her beauty. Geri has never been shy about complimenting people who deserve it, making sure they know how utterly gorgeous they are (she still wishes her Mum had told her, even the once). And so she hadn’t hesitated to walk right up to Mel on that first day and speak those words into the universe. She’d held some reactions back, though, the way her throat had suddenly gone dry when she’d reached for the door handle and instead brushed against an exposed strip of bronzed, glowing skin, the way her eyes had traced the lines of her body as she’d watched her walk to the platform, confident and lithe. 

“The skin on my legs is goin’ to be rubbed raw if you keep stroking them,” Mel had said to her one evening as they cuddled on the settee in front of an episode of Men Behaving Badly. “Reckon you can do without touching me for a few minutes?” It stills her mind, that kind of physical contact, and Mel understands that better than most, her own hyperactivity hard to manage sometimes. 

Geri had hummed in response, giving her friend’s thigh a final fond pat before grabbing a cushion to hold onto instead. “I don’t think I could handle living in a house with guys like that,” she’d told Mel jokingly. “You wouldn’t give me enough attention.”

There’s probably no limit to the amount of that she needs from the younger woman, though, she’ll admit that to herself. Sometimes she feels possessive, greedy, like she’s taking too much and one day, when everything ends (she doesn’t want to accept that inevitability), she’s going to end up feeling empty and lonely. The weight of Mel’s body on hers as they fall asleep is the feeling of security, and waking up to slim, strong arms banded around her body is temptation. 

* * *

**She’s tempted by her promises (I’ll make it good for you)**

They don’t really talk about it, but Geri can see her need reflected in Mel’s eyes sometimes. They’ll be at a club dancing and she’ll let her fingers linger against her friend’s breasts as she reaches for another beer. Or they’ll be pouring over a notepad, hashing out the best rhyme for ‘breathe’ and they’ll share a knowing smile. Maybe it’s her over-active imagination but she doesn’t think so, not when she’s as familiar with her friend’s expressions as her own. 

It’s five am on a Sunday morning when Mel first (finally) kisses her. A holy day, a time for worship. The club had been a melee of heat and beats and sexual tension, and they’d come home slightly worse for wear and collapsed onto the double bed upstairs. Geri loves working, feeling as though they’re inching closer towards their dream, but the weekends are often theirs and theirs alone, and there’s something precious about that too. 

“Did you see the way that guy was staring at you?” Mel asks her, tucking a strand of blonde-highlighted hair behind her ears. “Proper gagging for it.”

Geri rolls her eyes, clumsily tugs her top off and throws it on the floor beside Mel’s bed. 

“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Not sure when I asked to be interrogated about my lack of a love life, Melanie…” 

The younger woman nudges the duvet to the side and crawls in, still dressed in her fatigues and crop top. She should probably remind her friend that make-up is supposed to be removed and her hair’s going to be a right mess in the morning if she leaves it, but Geri’s still slightly high off the evening and the tiredness bearing down on her leaves her wanting to just lie back and watch as Mel makes herself comfortable. 

When long, familiar limbs tangle with her own, the physical contact echoes in her stomach, a slight fizzing that calls to her. 

Mel looks curiously at her, reaches a hand to Geri’s face and gently caresses her cheek. “It won’t ruin anything, y’know. I swear.”

Kisses are kisses, lips touching, tongues entangling, but she’s never kissed Mel before and if this never happens again, she wants to remember every sensation. 

“It’s just as well the girls aren’t here,” Mel says to her afterwards, resting her cheek against Geri’s bare stomach, her fingers still wet, her eyes still slightly unfocused. “I shouldn’t be surprised at how loud you are. And yet.”

She snorts, yanks at Mel’s hair until she twists her head, makes eye contact. “Your fault. Entirely.”

“I don’t mind taking the credit for that, I really don’t,” Mel laughs. 

* * *

**She’s tempted by the hope (maybe it’s possible for it to be something)**

She’s not sure when she started to let her mind go there, whether it was when they were out for lunch and nudged each other knowingly as two women held hands across the table, or whether it was one of Mel’s family parties, surrounded by people she was starting to love. 

It’s not realistic, of course, she knows that. Better than anyone, she gets that Mel won’t be tied down, can’t be. People sometimes think that her mind’s a bit fucked up and that she’s scatterbrained, but she’s not naive, and it doesn’t take seeing Mel hooking up in the dark corner of a club with another nameless man to know that she’s not the only one, won’t ever be. 

But maybe it could be more. 

“Geri, I can see you overthinking,” her friend says, her hands firm on her waist. “You know that never ends well.”

“Oh, fuck off.” The curse doesn’t have any sting behind it and it isn’t long before she’s on her back and turning the next page of her book. Mel’s body is heavy and warm as she half lays on top of her and fingers inch underneath Geri’s top, quickly reaching up to caress the underside of her breasts. It’s a distraction but not an unwelcome one. She stares resolutely at the words in front of her, but she knows the game is up the minute Mel starts making soft, approving noises. 

They’re taking a quick moment away from the press and the fans and the noise a few days later when she lets herself give into her curiosity. Emma’s at the catering table but she can’t hear them, and Geri needs to know. 

“Have you ever actually dated a girl?” she asks quietly, resting her chin on Mel’s shoulder and gazing out the window at the riviera, pretending it’s absorbing her attention when the reality is that all she can concentrate on is her friend’s hand reaching back to casually grip her thigh. “Like for real?”

“They’re crazy.”

_ As opposed to men. _ She doesn’t say it. 

“It’s not like I wouldn’t,” Mel amends. “But it’s not something I think about. Why?”

Geri presses a small kiss to the side of Mel’s neck, wraps her arms around her lover’s waist. It’s such an insufficient word, lover, which is funny considering how much it terrified and overwhelmed her the first few times she let her mind use it. 

“So, we still on for tonight? Simon said there’s this really nice restaurant just out of the city. Reckon it might be nice to ditch the other girls for a change.”

They share a sundae for dessert and Geri wants to kiss the cream off her lips, wants everyone to know that they belong to each other. 

* * *

**She’s tempted by the pain (it makes her feel something other than numbness)**

She knows it’s not Jimmy’s fault, per se, but she  _ hates _ him. She tells Mel it’s too fast, too much, to just be a little careful who she trusts, but her friend never does anything by halves, and it’s hard not to scream in frustration when they’re taking a lunch break from doing soundcheck, and she receives the oh so casual news that Mel’s now trying for a child. 

Inch by inch, she has felt their friendship eroding away. She’s not sure Mel notices, whether she can even remember the last time they slept together. If Geri could somehow climb into her own brain and remove the memory, she’d be sorely tempted. It hadn’t been better or worse than any other time. Mel had managed to draw out her orgasm eventually (“the getting there is half the fun,” she’d said once) and they’d woken up together, Geri kissing her awake as the dawn had broken. Familiar. Normal. Final. 

If that hadn’t been the last time, another would’ve been, and she’s a fucking idiot for not seriously considering that when everything started. She gets consumed, fixated, and when it turns out to be a mirage or something that can’t ever be what she needs it to be, the agony of the realisation hurts more than she expects the absence would. Ignorance is bliss is the refrain, and as she watches Mel gazing after Jimmy’s retreating back, a soft smile on her face that she thought was hers, she wishes she could claim it. 

She’s journaling more than she has in a long time but it’s not helping. The days come, one after another, Monday bleeding into Tuesday into Wednesday, and it feels like she’s watching the film of her own life, removed from it, unable to act or do anything but observe the ground falling away under her feet. Emma is more gentle with her than the others are, but the frustration is easily read on all their faces, both with whatever up fucked dynamic she has with Melanie, but also with her inability to be as good as them. And that’s always been the problem. It doesn’t matter how hard she tries, she’s  _ not _ going to be enough, not for the group she helped mold, and not for the woman who has shared her bed more often than any man. 

“We’re talking about maybe getting married too,” she hears Mel telling the other girls as they all have drinks in the hotel lobby one evening after the show. Geri’s glass is nearly empty. “Jim said he’s already seen a ring he thinks I’ll like.”

She sounds happy and Geri wants her to be happy. But not with him.

* * *

**She’s tempted by a second chance (she wants to rewrite the story)**

The imagining has been cruel, the wondering about what they’d say, what she’d do. When the moment finally comes and Mel’s arms wrap her up into a hug, it’s easy to forget that years have passed, that things aren’t what they were. Geri catalogues the changes one by one, both with her eyes and her hands - her skin is browner, her breasts larger, the way she moves even more entrancing than she remembers. It’s been too long since she’s been allowed to touch her and she doesn’t shy away from the opportunity, caressing her sunkissed skin as they drop into the tub, ignoring Rob’s eyeroll as he clocks the way she gravitates to her ex-lover. 

It’s not long enough and it’s definitely not private enough. There’s still a distance but it’s not as awkward as it could’ve been, and so when Mel leaves mid-afternoon (the sun is dangerously hot and it makes her feel reckless) to go to the loo, Geri follows. 

The hotel room is like any of the other hundreds she’s stayed in over the years, but she isn’t here for the decor nor the architecture. She rests her shoulder against the doorframe as Mel takes a piss, doesn’t want to be the one to start the conversation in case Mel immediately wants to end it. 

“So. Did you need to say something?” the younger woman says as she soaps between her fingers and lets the drip drip of the water wash it away. 

Geri’s apologised before, defensively, openly, at length and with brevity. She’s explained several of her reasons, avoided some of the others. She ignores the prompt, takes Mel’s hand in her own as they walk back into the bedroom.

“I haven’t forgiven you, y’know. You can’t just barge back into my life and expect - ”

Mel’s mouth doesn’t open immediately to the kiss and frustration rises in Geri’s chest. Unfairly. Unexpectedly. She wants things to be as they were, wants to pretend like it’s 1997 and they’re on top of the world and the possibilities are endless. Instead, firm hands push her back against the wall. 

“You’ve got balls, trying to do that, Ginge. Fuck’s sake.”

Surrender. She takes a seat on the edge of the bed, falls back into the soft mattress and covers her face with her hand. She can still feel Mel’s presence and that’s better than the alternative. Eventually, the silence gives way to the soft hum of the air-conditioner. She’s going to stay. 

Mel’s fingertips tip her face up, gently prise her hands away so she’s staring up at her former best friend. “You surprised me.”

“I surprised myself,” Geri laughs, trying to avoid sounding bitter. “I still seem to want you and I shouldn’t, I can’t.”

“You can,” Mel replies, her fingers at the knot of her bikini top. “But just this once.” 

It’s rushed and angry and bittersweet, and when she goes down on Mel, she doesn’t meet her eyes. 


End file.
